WBW Theater

Before the story begins the old Ranger tells us, for those that don’t know, that a Burro is the same as a donkey or a jackass, they stand about four foot high with furry coats and long ears and with a tail like a piece of rope frayed at the end. The scene opens in the mining camp, it’s the year 1905. Walter Scott Smith known as Smitty and his partner Owen Martin are negotiating with a fellow for a string of Burro’s with which to start out in to the hills.

Starring: Dresser Dahlstead

Broadcast Date: June 17, 1938

This episode was broadcast on Christmas Day 1953. The first record of the evening for the 'Sunday Serenade' featured Eddie Fisher, singing 'Many Times'. Throughout the show, there is an accompaniment of seasonal music, along with a biblical narrative about the birth of Jesus. 

Broadcast Date: December 25, 1953

The Black Museum; here in the grim stone structure on the Thames, which houses Scotland Yard, is a warehouse of homicide objects where everyday objects, a milk bottle, a woman’s handbag, a bit of fly paper, all are touched by murder. A Doctors prescription is a familiar object, you don’t think twice about it. You have a cold a sore throat the doctor comes and gives you a piece of paper with symbols scrawled on it. But the prescription found today in the black Museum was stronger than the one the victim was used to getting it contained more morphine…

Starring: Orson Welles

Broadcast: 1952

Bill Stern’s guests in Hollywood tonight are two of Hollywood’s most famous stars, Abbott and Costello.

Starring: Lou Costello, Bud Abbott, Bill Stern

Broadcast Date: January 4, 1946

After their previous disagreement, Brett asked Jessie to walk over and see him after dinner, and she weakened and agreed. Now Brett has just admitted Ben's wife to his living room, and without a word takes her into his arms, feeling her trembling. Jessie has tears in her eyes as they discuss their misunderstanding that afternoon.

Broadcast Date: 1942

We're going to accompany Harvey Benson in a fateful 24 hours of his life... Our visit with Harvey Benson begins on a Wednesday evening in summer. Harvey, a self made businessman is smoking a cigar and reading the newspaper, while his wife Linda, reads a book. It's quite a picture of peaceful domesticity, until the telephone rings. Harvey answers, and hears the click as someone replaces the handset when they hear his voice.

Starring: Maurice Tarplin, Ted Osborne, Mary Jane Higby, Jack Manning, James Van Dyke

Broadcast Date: October 25, 1949

A new type of question and answer game in which the public quiz the professionals. The public are invited to send in questions with their answers and if they are used on the show the sender gets $2. Further more if the professionals get them wrong the sender gets a further $5.

The show was created and run by Dan Golenpaul whose idea was to reverse the typical type of quiz show by allowing an intelligent, educated public ask the questions and put the alleged authorities on the spot. He certainly got the mix right by employing Clifton Fadiman as moderator of a panel of four experts, which would always include 2 or 3 regulars and guest personalities. Fadiman himself came from a background in books being a book critic for the New Yorker.

Other regulars included Science writer Bernard Jaffe, professor of philosophy Dr Harry Overstreet, Marcus Duffield of the New York Herald-Tribune and later John Kieran a sport's columnist for the New York Times and Oscar Levant a pianist and composer. What all of these had in common was their broad interests and knowledge and quick and slicing wit.

The intellectual questions were a catalyst for talk and the hilarious humor that emerged. "An uproarious error or a brilliant bit of irreverence was rated far above any dull deliverance of the truth," wrote John Kieran, one of the four major personalities. Go ahead and sample any of these shows and I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Broadcast Date: January 3, 1944

The Commissioner of police at Marseille was unable to furnish Ace Williams with definite information concerning the headquarters of The Tunis Terror. However, he arranged with a seaplane pilot, Lieutenant Tamway, to fly Ace to Valencia, where they can interview Juan Carlos Domingo, who is refuted to know more about the terror than any other man in Europe. We find them now, flying high above the Mediterranean Sea on a south westerly course towards the coast of Spain...

Starring: Dan Ryan, Marjorie Hannan

Broadcast Date: January 12, 1938

After John Gunther wrote Inside Europe, Inside Asia and Inside Latin America, all of them best sellers, most of us had little doubt what Gunther would write next. The only question was, which of the few continents left would he choose first. Hardly anyone, suspected that his next book would be a novel! Right now, two well-known critics join John K M McCaffrey, in a free and frank discussion of the new book, The Troubled Midnight, and the author has to act in their own defense...

Starring: Gunther, Whit Burnett, Harry Hanson

Broadcast Date: January 29, 1945

The Tennessee Valley Authority are going to be building some dams in the area, and so their company representative, Mr Davis, has been visiting some of the mountain property owners in the area, to give the bad news that their home is lying in the valley earmarked to be flooded and turned into a lake. At the home of the next family, the farm has been in the family for generations, and the elderly lady who lives there will be devastated to learn their fate...

Starring: Josephine Sharkey, Charles Kuralt, John Eely

Broadcast Date: August 4, 1955